Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
With a pulsating jaw and glittering eyes, he growls, “You ever, fuckin’ ever, put yourself in danger like you did tonight, I’ll let ’em fuckin’ feed on you.”
My heart is beating, beating, fucking beating in my chest and there’s a rush in my ears. I can hardly hear him. I can hardly breathe. Instead, strange noises are coming out of my mouth, wheezing noises, and I grip his shirt tighter. “C-can’t… b-breathe. Can’t…”
His brows furrow and concern flashes through his features. Pure and undiluted. And in the next moment, I’m in his arms.
My bound hands are still clutching his shirt, but my feet aren’t on the ground anymore. He’s picked me up and put his arms around me, and somehow my thighs know what to do. They know to spread and boost up, going around his muscular waist. He flexes his arms, squeezing me to his body, and my ankles know how to cross and find a home at his back.
Once I’m secure against him, he starts walking. He also moves his arms to put one hand, splayed open, on my spine and the other on the back of my head. He gently but firmly pushes my face into the crook of his neck, and my nose nuzzles into his hot skin while he strokes my back. He lowers his face, his stubbled jaw rustling against my clammy cheek as he shushes me. As he whispers in my ear, “Shh, you’re okay now. You’re okay.”
I’m too frozen to realize what’s happening, but I still cling to him. I still burrow into his neck and squeeze my thighs around his striding body. He comes to a halt, but I’m still hiding my face away on the side of his neck and I don’t see where we are.
“I’ve got you, yeah?” he keeps whispering. “Just breathe.”
I shake my head, fisting his shirt. “I-I’m… I’m so—”
“Shh,” he goes, all gently, softly. “Breathe now, darlin’. I’ve got you.”
Maybe it’s that rough but also gentle whisper of his; maybe it’s the fact that he called me darlin’ in that drawling voice, the voice I’ve overheard gruff cowboys use with their women. Or it could be the way he’s still stroking my back, going up and down, warming me up, loosening my petrified limbs, while still cradling the back of my head. Whatever it is, I draw in my first full breath, relief bursting through my body.
I feel it bursting through his body, too, his chest moving with his own breath, and he rasps, “Good. Good, one more for me, okay?”
I do it. I breathe.
He praises me again, his hands still at work. “That’s my girl. One more now.”
And I manage to whisper, “I-I thought I was… g-going to die.”
He squeezes me to him, his voice low. “No.”
“I thought—”
“Not on my watch.”
Something about his words soften the last of my dread and I sigh into his neck. “I liked that b-better.”
“What?”
I swallow, rubbing my nose on his neck, breathing in his scent. “You calling me darlin’.”
His chest moves again, shudders almost, and his fingers in my hair flex as he says, as if to make me happy, “Darlin’.”
I close my eyes at how good that feels. “Instead of you c-calling me… Princess.”
His arms flex around me again, and this time, he whispers, “Princess.”
He says it so gently, so lovingly, and so unlike all the other times before that all I can do is gasp. Like he knew this was what I wanted. This was how I wished he’d call me Princess. With tenderness, not with venom.
For a few moments all I do is breathe against his neck, cherishing the gift he gave me, and all he does is rub my back. All I think about is how warm he feels, how strong and vital. How I never ever want to leave this place, his arms, because I’ve wanted this for so long. I’ve wanted to feel his strength for months, since the first moment I saw him. The first moment I watched him save me, single-handedly felling the men trying to hurt me. My Phantom in a mask. My hero.
But then I go still.
Because he’s not my Phantom, is he? He’s not my hero. He didn’t save me. Not tonight or any other night. He’s the one who hunted me. He’s the one who put me in danger. Almost had me killed, almost had me eaten. By the wolves. How could I forget? How could I let it escape me that he did this to me?
All of a sudden, I’m filled with rage. I’m breathing fire instead of his scent. I push myself away from him and look at his face. Look at his evil, murdering but still beautiful face. The lines of which are set firm and blank, his scar thick. But not so blank that I don’t read the resignation on it, at what he did. Or the realization that I’ve finally found my lost senses.